¡Yo Soy Conando! and more Case of the Mondays

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Finally…WE’RE BACK! More Mile High Musings – wait a minute. We need to change the subtitle of this thing. I mean, Case of the Mondays remains great, but Mile High Musings? I’m no longer in Denver! No more need for nostalgia. Hmmmm…what fits with Iowa?

(I swear to God, the next wisenheimer who makes a corn joke is getting 4,000 ears of corn shipped overnight to your front door. Grrrrr…)

Corn actually doesn’t work, since Davenport is extremely urban. No sign of corn anywhere. The Mississippi River’s right there, though. How about, Riverside Rants? That work for everybody? Good.

Now, without further adieu…a supersized pilot installment of Riverside Rants on a Monday that sees a parade of champions passing through during the past few weeks…

• My dad and I had a conversation on, I wanna say it was Friday; the Lakers had just taken a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals and the Red Wings were about to battle the Penguins in one game, in Joe Louis Arena, for the Stanley Cup. My dad posed the interesting question: if you could take one and only one result to your liking based on rivalry (a Red Wings loss at home, or a complete Laker collapse), which would it be?
• Interesting question, I think. And I’d love to hear input from other Colorado fans. Basically, you’re either harkening back to your good ol’ Avalanche-loving, “Red Wings Suck” days and stripping Detroit of a Cup on its home ice … or you’re making sure “The Rapist” is handed the most painful beating of his life in Games 5, 6 and 7 which would make a diehard Nuggets fan feel kinda, sort better in the end.
• My dad’s take was hands down, take the Red Wings loss. I think he’s still more into the NHL than I am, so he loved seeing Denver’s most hated rival failing to win their fifth championship of the Colorado Avalanche era.
• Me? I had to think for a minute, before agreeing with my dad. However, I had a different reason. Kobe is a psycho. He really is. And I mean that in a good way. He absolutely killed himself over the past two years – mainly, in the past 12 months since losing to Boston – to get that fourth ring and first post-Diesel ring.
• If you’re a Nuggets fan, or Spurs fan, or Blazers/Jazz/Suns/Mavs/Rockets/Hornets fan, do you want ANY part of an even more pissed-off Kobe Bryant in 2009-10? I didn’t think so. Let Kobe soak in the completion of his quest, and now that he’s getting older – not to mention, that’s a whole lotta games he’s now logged in the last 24 months – there’s great opportunity for another Western Conference team to make the Finals next season.
• (Psssst…Chauncey, are you listening? MAKE IT HAPPEN NEXT YEAR! Thank you.)



• So anyway, speaking of the Lakers, congratulations to Los Angeles on your 15th. And to Phil Jackson on his tenth in 19 years – now THAT is an accomplishment.
• But I’m morally obligated to complain about this somehow, so let’s talk about that ghastly postgame ceremony in which three different sequences were excruciating to watch, not from a I-hate-the-Lakers standpoint but from a why-is-this-completely-ad-libbed-I-think-I’ll-flip-to-TBS-to-watch-Mean-Girls-now standpoint…
• Stuart Scott’s first interview upon the Lakers being presented the Larry O’Brien trophy was not Jerry Buss. It was Jerry’s son Joey – what kind of high-powered executive is named Joey? – whose attire (not just any polo shirt and jeans; it was an outfit that looked like it was 40 percent off at Kohl’s during Bonus Buys week in May) indicates he didn’t realize he was going to be accepting a world championship trophy on national television. Instead, he thought he was just gonna be backstage, draining free booze with attractive 24-year-old interns who were staring at the huge bulge in his pants.
• (A bulge caused by a wallet filled with Daddy’s cash. Get your minds out of the gutter.)
• Anyway…uhhh…okay, I’ll ask. Where’s Jerry? Why are we talking to his son, who nobody’s even heard of (not even Kobe or Pau)? Why can’t he shave his neck patch? Why was the answer to Stu Scott’s first question a long pause and then, “this one…means…a lot.”? (Thanks for the elaboration) And for god’s sake, if we can’t hear from the actual owner, why not his daughter, Jeanie Buss, who’s also dating Phil Jackson? Wouldn’t it have been great for Stu to kid around with her about dating PJ with some sort of lame sex pun or asking if this would be a good time for Phil to pop the question? That whole sequence was especially painful.
• Then during Scott’s interview with Phil, that went well enough…right until the end, when Phil addressed his family, said “they mean so much to me and I can’t thank them enough” to clearly complete his answer. But Stu must have had a stroke or something, because he stared at Phil for THREE GOOD SECONDS, keeping the microphone in front of his face, not asking a follow-up question or turning it back to David Stern, forcing Phil to stammer out awkwardly, “thank you”. Hi, hello Stu? Earth to Stu? You’re on NATIONAL TELEVISION. Wake up.
• And then, Stern brings up Bill Russell, apparently to assist him with presenting the MVP trophy to Kobe Bryant. Sounds like a real two-man job. Stern lists off all Bill Russell’s accolades, reminding the Magic crowd and L.A.’s fans of how successful the Celtics’ franchise has been (like anybody cares or wants to hear about that). After a long-winded introduction, Stern nods in Russell’s direction, and Russell goes to take the microphone and present Kobe with the trophy in his name. Except, inexplicably, Stern gives Russell the “psyche!” treatment, turning back to the crowd and saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 Finals Most Valuable Player, Kobe Bryant!”, and the camera shows in on a stunned Russell, clapping politely but almost certainly thinking, “WTF? Is Stern clinically insane? Why’d I come down here? And where’s Kevin Garnett at? Shouldn’t I be giving him this trophy?”
• What a weird postgame, post-championship ceremony. Well done, ABC and NBA. Take a bow.
• Or don’t. Whatever.



• Pau Gasol wears braces? I had no idea.
• I still think Gasol’s nickname should be Garbage Man, for all the easy points he picks up for doing almost nothing. But I do not still think he’s overrated. He’s one of the top five big men in the league, no matter how he gets it done.



• Saw the Hangover Saturday. Comic genius.
• That is a spot-on representation of what every man aspires to with bachelor parties and Vegas-related shenanigans in general. The physical humor was great – but that’s kinda besides the point.
• Hangover is an absolute quote machine, like Anchorman-level. I cannot WAIT to buy the DVD – which will certainly be Unrated and might come with 3D glasses, considering the direction of Hollywood – and start memorizing every line. Highly recommend the flick, if you haven’t caught it already.



• How ‘bout them Rockies? Got a lil’ stat for you. Looked it up myself.
• On June 15, 2007, the Rockies were right at .500, had a minus-24 run margin, and sat 5 games behind the Dodgers out of the National League wild card.
• On June 15, 2009, the Rockies were one game under .500, had a plus-22 run margin, and sat 3.5 games behind the Giants out of the NL wild card.
• The ’09 team was unwatchable on June 1. The ’07 team made the World Series.
• All together now: I’m not sayin’. I’m just sayin’.
• Okay, I admit it. I did hurt myself jumping on the bandwagon. I’m not making any playoff declarations; I’m not even saying I’m going to watch them any more closely now…it’s not easy when you’re out of town like this. But at least they’re watchable now, and should the Dodgers drop off even a little bit – well, things might get interesting.



• And now, our weekly News and Views (Andy Baggot, your check is in the mail)…
• News: Jason Marquis pitches brilliantly for seven innings on Saturday, leaving with one earned run and a 3-1 lead. Manny Corpas enters in the eighth, surrenders a game-tying two-run jack, but finishes the inning and benefits from two Rockie runs in the bottom half of the inning. Corpas picks up the victory; Marquis gets squat.
• Views: Please, MLB statnerds, PLEASE … can we do away with the silly won-loss rules for pitching? Like, really. I’d feel just as wronged if Johan Santana gave up 11 runs in two innings, only for the Mets to win (or lose) 17-15 and provide Santana with a no-decision.
• We’ve got to create a new formula for win-loss: maybe it’s gotta be the team record when that guy pitches. Or perhaps it takes into consideration who was leading when the pitcher departed, which wouldn’t keep it as a “win-loss” record, but some other stat that judges how often a pitcher gives his team a chance to win the freaking ballgame.
• If nothing else, please…no more shall a reliever be allowed to pick up a blown save AND a win in the same game like Corpas did. PERIOD. If a starting pitcher can throw four solid innings and be disallowed from being named the winner, then we can certainly create a rule that stops a reliever from blowing a lead – or, for that matter, allowing two or more runs in any circumstance – from becoming the pitcher of record during a victory because his teammates bailed him out.
• And that’s my extended Riverside Rant of the day. Whew. Glad I could get that out.



• Federer’s French Fourteen. The Swiss Slam. Roger and Pete just hangin’ out together, on the same line.
• And yes, the victory is slightly hollow since Nadal didn’t meet Federer there in the final at Roland Garros. But as they say, you can only beat the guys on the other side of the net. It wasn’t like Roger went all college football on us and intentionally scheduled a patsy like Robin Soderling to roll over under all that pressure on Championship Sunday.
• Should Nadal be unable to compete at Wimbledon, does that make things easier for Roger’s quest to break Sampras’ all-time mark in London? Sure it does. But is it automatic? Not even close. I think the likes of Novak Djokovic, the much-improved homeboy Andy Murray, and even a hot stringer like Andy Roddick (not to mention all the young talent like Del Potro, Tsonga, Ferrer, Gulbis, et al) might have something to say about that.
• But anyways, well done to Federer. He deserves inner peace after having the French Open elude him all those years. Wimbledon should be terrifically fun.



• As for the women’s side? Boy, when Maria and Ana are hurt/struggling and the Williams sisters go quietly in the early rounds, I just can’t bring myself to care. Sorry. Need more stud players outside that foursome.
• For the avid tennis fan: buy this book. Now. And read it. Read it all. You can do it in a day. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Have a good one.

-AJ

Q-C Times Links and Update, from Davenport

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DAVENPORT--I won't link to every story I've written so far, but here's a few of the highlights...

- Bettendorf soccer guys knock off Dubuque Hempstead (first story)
- Clinton sweeps Davenport Central doubleheader (first baseball game I've ever covered)
- Moline season ends in Bloomington (with video)
- Jim Hallihan pimps Iowa Summer Games (this guy is a SERIOUS contender for June or July Sportsman Of The Month. What a great 45-minute interview that was.)
- Iowa girls' soccer state tourney: Davenport Assumption and Pleasant Valley go down in first round

And a video daily double: PV's Anna Aquino and Assumption's coach Rob Eckert. It's unbelievable how different my interviewing life has become in the past two weeks; we now use these little Flip video cameras to capture video, and they are spectacular at picking up the audio. Since you can't hold a Flip and a recorder to someone's mouth at the same time, I feel like I'm cheating on my recorder, but that's the way this business is evolving.

I think I'll have a chance to pen my first real Mile High Musings in a while on Monday. Lots of goings on in sports, and I'll have ample time to write them, for a change. Have a great weekend, everyone!

-AJ

Wisconsin: The Time of my Life

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So this is a little belated. About three weeks belated, actually. But I wrote the majority of this before graduation, and just finished it off today. It’s not particularly glory-trodden or even well-written, just a smattering of thoughts as I and many of my friends enter this scary place called the real world.

It’s been an extremely full three weeks; I’ve wrung my hands over job prospects, graduated from college, gotten the most gratifying phone call of my life from a little city I like to call Davenport (or the QC), said goodbye to Madison friends, returned to Denver, endured surgery for the first time in my life (hey, wisdom teeth: you suck), watched three Nuggets games from my couch in searing pain thanks to said wisdom teeth, said goodbye to Colorado friends, said an emotional goodbye to my family and to my hometown Denver, moved out of my apartment, said goodbye to the last of my Madison friends, and trucked on down to the QC (or Womanport … only one of you should get that joke, oops) to begin my career.

For those who didn’t catch the news in an earlier blog post, I will be reporting on high school sports for the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa. As I said in that blog post, I feel extremely humbled to be granted this opportunity when there are currently so few opportunities to be had in this industry. I will certainly keep everybody posted on how it’s going; I’ll post as much as I can, but obviously, work comes first. Nonetheless, I’ll continue following Bucky from afar, just as I’m sure B-dubs will be keeping tabs on the Sooners as well.

But let’s get right to it. I wanted to write a few words about what college, Madison, and the University of Wisconsin has meant to me. This is for all the seniors who graduated with me last week, for all the Badger alumni who left before me, and for all our friends who are fortunate enough to return to Madison next fall as current students of the UW.

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I remember the 2005 U.S. Open for one distinct reason, and it has nothing to do with tennis. My dad went to Flushing that year, and he constantly reminds me of when he was watching my boyhood rival (okay, fine, that one racquet-wielding stud who I played once and got one game off of. Some rival), Kellen Damico, play in the U.S. Junior Open for the first time. I wanted to hear none of it. It was Saturday afternoon, before Labor Day and before classes began on Tuesday. I had been in Madison for about a week, and hated it. HATED it. I had no friends; I was way in over my head thinking how hotshot cool I was to be going to school where I knew nobody as opposed to my Chatfield North (er, University of Colorado) friends. I wanted to go home, and was seriously considering a transfer back to CU.

But as is usually the case, life works itself out. I made a bunch of friends on Witte 6B during a pickup football game. The Badger Herald entered my life during Week 2. And, of course, you meet people and meet people through people and eventually build up a friend base. That’s when I learned, you can’t make snap judgments on what something’s going to be like after too short a time period, whether it’s a new town or a girlfriend or an MLB team in late April. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I almost sprinted my way back to Colorado, and I’m obviously glad I waited it out.

When I was fortunate enough to enter the ranks of the Herald sports editors as a freshman, that made for an unfortunate situation in that I had to leave that goofily-fun place after my sophomore year. It was disappointing that I couldn’t have spent more time there, but it did open up other opportunities with the Wisconsin State Journal and, later on, Janesville Gazette and Capital Times. My time with the Herald, Gazette and Cap Times are forever memorable, because I had the distinct pleasure of covering eight seasons’ worth of Badger athletics, both at home and on the road. Oh, those road trips. That’s the stuff college sportswriting is made of. The State Journal might not have opened those UW doors, but that’s particularly special because those sports assistant’s spots are where you really cut your teeth. I’ve now written four stories here in Davenport on high school baseball and soccer, and I can’t tell you how easy the transition has been because I did it for two years with the WSJ.

And then, senior year. The greatest year of my life, I’d say. Why? Well, it helps to be 21 in Madison. I never really was a big house party guy. And it helps to find a great living situation with a good roommate and an awesome apartment. And it helps to only take two classes your final semester so it’s a relatively low-stress way to go out.

But that’s not why. College will be missed not because of the town or the teams; they’ll always be there. It’s the people. And darnit, I’m gonna miss the 419ers.

I don’t wanna get all mushy on you guys, because hey, that’s not our style. Our style is all fun and games with just a touch of drama thrown in, which I love. But another style of mine, notoriously, has been enjoying a large group of acquaintances with the absence of truly close friends in my life. I was never one to have a tight-knit group around; I always preferred to move from friend base to friend base, keeping in touch with these acquaintances without having an entitled “best friend” or set-in-stone fallback group. Although the whole Badger Herald group came pretty close to that, it was a little tough for me as most of the sports people from my editing days were older and have moved on to Casper, Shawano, Nashville, Miami and elsewhere.

Then came the 419ers. Having that tight group that unequivocally loved hanging with each other multiple nights in a row, during class, after class, and the entire semester after our studio went dark, was a completely new experience for me. It made me a better person, for sure; and it was all a part of that newfound desire to soak up and enjoy college rather than viewing it as a four-year stopgap in life. I’m gonna miss all your crazy asses so much; obviously I’ll be up here again to relive our Nitty/Wando’s/Key/KK days, but on Zach’s recommendation, I call 419er road trip to visit me for the Wisconsin-Iowa basketball game in winter 2010. It might be a terrible matchup, but come on down anyways and we’ll show Iowa what the Four-One-Niners are made of.

Back to everyone else: that invitation is most definitely an open one to anybody who ever wants to visit the Quad Cities. You wanna come down and visit, just drop me a line and we’ll make it happen. I’m sure I’ll make plenty of friends in Davenport, but it’s always special to see old chums from Madison too.

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I've definitely had a great run here. To me, it's beyond senseless that I was graduating high school four years ago. Forty-eight months ago. I mean, really, it feels weird typing that. College felt like it lasted 10-15 years, seriously. Without exaggeration. Probably because I lived so many different lives...the Herald, two different dorm floors, the State Journal, the club tennis team, my Jewish friends, the Janesville Gazette, covering eight different seasons of football/basketball/hockey/volleyball, Badger Nation, driving to something like 30 out-of-town games and tournaments to cover the Badgers, all my J-School friends, the Capital Times, and finally this final year of enjoying the bar scene when I was more reserved in my pre-21 days. I absolutely soaked everything I could out of the University of Wisconsin, and just can't believe it's over. The reason I was sentimental in that blog post is because during my frosh and soph years (and even some of junior year), I was like, I can't wait to get a job, be out of school, make money, start on my quest for ESPN or SI or what have you. Then finally, senior year, I realized how much I'll miss this place, that it was much, MUCH more than a stepping stone. So, yeah, it's become an emotional transitional period.

What did Wisconsin teach me? The easy answer is that I gained great perspective on how to properly balance the work ethic in your life with some fun. With regards to all my great memories with the Wisconsin State Journal and UW Tennis Club, making the tough decision to part ways with those two organizations freed up my time much more, and allowed me to respect that balance.

To that end, I’ll close with this. To all my Wisconsin professors, you guys are the best. Keep churning out great writers; there’s so much talent on this campus and in this J-school, there’s unbelievable opportunity to keep the Wisco tradition thriving.

To all my bosses, I’m not here without you. Thanks for giving me a shot, the experiences were invaluable.

To the aspiring sportswriters reading this – heck, to anybody with a “crazy” dream who’s trying to figure out what they’re trying to do with their life – that you should never, EVER, stop dreaming. More importantly, don’t stop believing.

And finally, to wrap up in an appropriate manner (since it is, you know, about Graduation). To everyone still in college thinking that it’s going to last forever: it won’t. It may have seemed like 10 years to me, but everyone else is right on that it does go by quickly. When it does come to an end, you’re going to wish like hell you had more time. Soak up college life for everything it’s worth, because it truly is…the time of your life.

_____________________________Taste every moment.
_______________________________Live it out loud.
__________________________This is the time to be more
_______________________Than a name or a face in the crowd.
____________________________I know this is the time,
___________________________This is the time of my life.
________________________________-David Cook

Talk to you all later. Good luck to all of you on your journeys, and please, PLEASE, keep in touch in any way you wish.

-AJ

Greatest. Case. Of. The. Mondays. EVER.

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I am delighted to announce that I am officially employed!!!

I'll be covering high school sports for the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa. The QC Times has a 51,000 circulation on weekdays and 70,000 on Sunday; Davenport (100,000 population) is the largest of four towns in the Quad Cities (350,000), right on the Mississippi River separating Iowa from Illinois. It's just under three hours from Mad-town and even closer to Chicago. As you can imagine, in this economic climate and especially considering a fledgling newspaper industry, I'm blessed to have been given this opportunity and cannot WAIT to get down there to begin work at the start of June. I'll be keeping you all posted on how the job's going, with some Madison updates too, of course.

One thing I'll also say about it, without trying to stand up too tall on a soap box. My advice to all my friends that are trying to get journalism jobs right now (and everyone who's reading this trying to do the same): don't give up. If you've worked hard enough, you care enough about the profession and you keep pursuing what you want, there's always going to be room for able sportswriters. Don't listen to ANYBODY who tells you there's "no jobs" or whatever in sports journalism; don't acknowledge that pessimism even a little bit. I know I didn't, and I'm moving on to very, very exciting things because I didn't.

Oh, and I'm not closing the book on Madison just yet. I'll have my final words on my last four years in Wisconsin within the next day or two; hopefully, my Oklahoman comrade in crime can do the same for his Sooners as well.

-AJ